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Scholarship Stories

Dr. Milton R. Liverman Scholarship

Former Suffolk Public Schools superintendent, Dr. Milton Liverman, will forever help Suffolk students pay for college thanks to a scholarship fund his wife Shirley established in his name.

Dr. Milton Liverman was a former Suffolk Public Schools superintendent who dedicated 36 years to education in Suffolk. He started as a high school math teacher and then led the school division as superintendent for 10 years. He was named a regional Superintendent of the Year in 2006.

When Milton passed away in February 2017, his wife Shirley established the Dr. Milton R. Liverman Memorial Scholarship Fund at the Hampton Roads Community Foundation to “keep a memory of him” and honor his love of children and education. As superintendent, “every decision he made was based on how it would impact the students,” says Shirley.

The Livermans were partners in life and ministry. As educators, they retired at the same time in 2010 and became ministers together. They founded 4 HZ GLORY MINISTRY, which Shirley continues today. They also enjoyed traveling. Hilton Head, SC was one of their favorite destinations. The Livermans were generous supporters of their church and its missions plus several nonprofits, including Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters and The Genieve Shelter.

Although Milton was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer shortly after retirement, “he didn’t look like what he was going through,” Shirley says. “He had hope even when the doctors didn’t give him hope. He never complained.”

Milton was only given six months to live after his initial diagnosis, but he went on to live for six more years. “I prayed for a miracle [during his illness], but we were already living the miracle for six years,” says Shirley.

“Milton loved God, his family, his career and his community,” Shirley says. “He loved life.” That’s a legacy of love that will continue on forever.

The Dr. Milton R. Liverman Scholarship Fund helps graduating high school seniors from Suffolk Public Schools pay for college. It is among more than 80 scholarship funds administered by the Hampton Roads Community Foundation.

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Lewis K. Martin II, M.D. and Cheryl Rose Martin Scholarship

Dr. Lewis Martin of Winchester, Virginia likes to say that "Florence Smith saved my bacon." It was 1964, and he had just finished his first year at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. The scholarship that helped him had ended and Lewis had no idea how to pay his tuition. Then he won a Florence L. Smith Scholarship from the community foundation that "picked up the cost for my last three years and set the tone for the rest of my life."

Lewis, the first in his family to go to college, went on to a rewarding career as a radiologist. In 2005 he and his wife Cheryl decided to repay his benefactor by setting up their own scholarship fund at the community foundation. It benefits students at his medical school and his and Cheryl's undergraduate alma maters. He later also arranged for a future bequest to add to the scholarship.

"I was not particularly charitable while working, raising a family and paying bills," Lewis says. What impresses him about the Smith Scholarship that started in 1952 is "after all these years and all these hundreds of doctors being educated, the scholarship still had $2 million left. I thought if I give them my money and history repeats itself, my scholarship will be helping people 50 years after I am dead."

Tommy Horvatic Memorial Scholarship

Tommy Horvatic was a Virginia Beach student getting ready to start his senior year of high school. He was a competitive swimmer, a Boy Scout and a church alter boy. He was known for his good sense of humor, great character and picking up and selling aluminum cans to get money for dates.

When a car accident in 1986 took Tommy's life. His grief-stricken parents Tom and Rita continued collecting cans and used proceeds to fund scholarships in Tommy's name for graduates of Princess Anne High School, Tommy's alma mater. That effort continued after his dad's death until 2013 when his mom donated $100,000 to the Hampton Roads Community Foundation to create the endowed Tommy Horvatic Memorial Scholarship. It is for Princess Anne students of good character involved in the community but who may not be at the top of their class.

"The impetus for moving the scholarship here was estate planning," says Anne Horvatic Christie, Tommy's sister. As a Maury High School guidance counselor she has helped many students receive foundation scholarships. "Endowing the scholarship ensured my mother's goal of making sure Tommy's scholarship would last," Anne says.

Rita Horvatic passed away in 2015 with memorial gifts coming to Tommy's Fund. For 2016-17 there are three students in college as Horvatic Scholars.

Watch a short video to learn more about Tommy and his scholarship:

Enid W. and Bernard B. Spigel Architectural Scholarship Fund

Bernard Betzig Spigel (1895-1968) was a Richmond native who moved to Norfolk as a boy. He graduated from Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh and served in the Army Corps of Engineers during World War I. He then came home to set up an architecture practice. Spigel was known for designing theaters as well as homes, schools and businesses. In 1983, Spigel’s daughter, Lucy Spigel Herman, established a scholarship that honored her late father and stepmother. Each year the Enid W. and Bernard B. Spigel Architectural Scholarship helps upper-level or graduate students from Virginia earn degrees in architecture, architectural history or architectural preservation.

Among the past recipients is notable Virginia Beach architect Clay Dills who received the scholarship during his final year at Virginia Tech. "The scholarship was really meaningful to me and continues to be meaningful," he says.

Joseph E. And Bertha White Harry Scholarship

Raven Bland never met Joseph and Bertha Harry, but this Old Dominion University senior appreciates how this generous couple from her Norfolk neighborhood helps her pay for college. Raven, a history major, won a Joseph E. and Bertha White Harry Scholarship in 2013 when she started at ODU. Four years later Raven, who was Hampton Roads' first Youth Poet Laureate, is among nearly 40 students each year who are Harry Scholars. She is planning a career in government and already looking forward to the day when she can start her own scholarship fund to help other students.

​Joseph Harry was a grocery buyer who lived modestly in Norfolk's Norview neighborhood with his wife Bertha, who died in 1985. Neither graduated from college. Both were active in our community -- Joseph as a Mason and Bertha with the American Red Cross and a garden club. The couple had no children of their own, but through Joseph's estate plans they have dozens of scholarship "family" like Raven. After Joseph passed away in 1991 his estate left a generous gift to the community foundation to start an endowed scholarship fund. He specified that it be for Hampton Roads students attending either ODU or Virginia Wesleyan College. The perpetual Harry Fund will forever be helping college students prepare for the future.

Gertrude "Betty" Ward Scholarship

​Frederick Ward, a retired Navy officer, left no surviving family members when he passed away in Virginia Beach in 2011 at age 92. His wife Gertrude, a long-time teacher best known as Betty, had died 15 years earlier. His only child and grandchild also suddenly passed away before him. Thanks to a contingency bequest Fred Ward tucked into his estate plans, today there are three scholarship recipients in college in his wife's name.

He specified that should no heirs outlive him, a scholarship for Virginia Beach students be established at the Hampton Roads Community Foundation. He asked that it have a preference either for graduates of Princess Anne High School where Betty taught or for students studying English, which was her field.

Because of Fred's foresight he and his wife will always help Virginia Beach students lead better lives as Ward Scholars following in Betty's footsteps. Daja Askew, one of the first two recipients in 2015, is a Bayside High School graduate studying at Virginia Tech to become an English teacher.

Daja says: "I feel honored to have been one of the first to have received the scholarship! It was a big surprise and definitely will help to me to pursue my dream of going to college, and furthering my education."